Breathe Me
by greyslostwho
Summary: L/S, starting directly where the series finale left us. Lilly has to look after her niece for a while. Multi-chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Breathe Me**

**Takes off where the finale left us. LS, of course.**

**Right, this is totally not what I do, but I'm starting to post this before I've finished writing the story... this is unusual... So, as it's still in progress, and I'm quite busy, I think you're going to get about one chapter a week. I hope you enjoy this, I've been working on it for two years now!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own. No one does, not anymore :(**

**_One_**

She's never liked hospitals, for one reason or another… the smell gets right down her throat and the ringing silence into her ears, and the bright light stings her eyes. She's had a fair few run ins with the hospitals over the years, being the patient herself, everything from a broken arm at age five – her mother had been too busy flirting with the man working at the ice-cream stand to watch her on the swings – to the near fatal gunshot wound from a few years before – she'll never forget how the cold felt washing over her. But being in the waiting room, that hadn't become so common to her, and somehow, in some inexplicable twist, it is almost harder.

She can't get the grey tinge of Christina's face out of her head, the weak, starving cries of the tiny baby girl, the bruises on her sister's side she'd seen when Scotty lifted her and the hem of her T-shirt raised slightly. She can't seem to stop the nausea rising in her throat as she imagines the possibilities – what if she hadn't gotten there in time, what if she'd been too late, what if she hadn't heard the baby crying?

And then there's the darker imaginings, almost, the ones she knows she'll torture herself with for the foreseeable future – what if she'd been better to Christina her whole life? What if she hadn't helped to drive her away? What if she'd been less sheltered, less naïve, when she'd first seen her in the diner, what if she'd realised what was wrong then – might she have got there in time? What if she'd turned up at Christina's motel room earlier? Scenarios fly wildly in her, and without noticing, she's clenching and unclenching her fists.

"Lil…" she hears Scotty say, his voice low, almost like he's scared to speak. She'd almost forgotten for a moment, that he was still there with her. Once he'd driven them to the hospital she'd offered him his way out, told him to go home, but he'd done nothing but laugh dryly at her and follow her inside. She turns her face up to his, and there's pain in his eyes, they look as she imagines hers do, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes tired and full of bewilderment, fatigue. She can't even bring herself to say anything, simply holds his gaze for a moment, lets her hands relax, realising the concern in his voice is for her as much as for her sister and for the baby.

He's pacing, and she wishes he would stop pacing, because her eyes are following him up and down the waiting room, and she can't seem to get her thoughts in order whilst she's watching him.

Then again, maybe that's a good thing. She can't imagine a pathway her thoughts might take right now that would lead her anywhere painless, anywhere peaceful. He glances at her every few seconds, resumes his pacing, looking around as if an answer to one of his questions might appear out of thin air, out of the silence. The waiting room is almost deserted, it's nearly eleven at night, and they're not in the ER anymore, but in the on-call OBGYN department. Lilly can hardly focus the memory from only about an hour before, when the doctors, all stern, emotionless faces and concerned eyes, took Christina in one direction and took the little girl out of her arms and in the other direction, one of them asking her something about calling the police, to which she'd been unable to answer until Scotty pulled out his badge and said something in a hushed tone that she hadn't quite been able to hone in on, either.

Everything is crumbling, she decides, she's finally going mad.

At last, he sinks into the hard plastic chair beside her, resting his hands on the arms of the chair, tapping his fingers slightly.

"They'll be alright…" he whispers, and she nods her head… too quickly. They don't look at one another, but he reaches out a hand and places it on her arm. "We got to them in time, Lil. They'll be fine."

She isn't sure where the turning point was, any of the turning points for that matter – she isn't sure when he stopped being the mildly irritating ex-narcs cop, and started being her _partner. _She isn't sure when he stopped being just her partner and started being her friend, and she sure as hell doesn't know when he stopped being just her friend and started knowing exactly what she was thinking, and exactly what she needed him to say. But she breathes slowly, his touch calming her slightly, bringing the threads of her thoughts into coherence again, and nods slightly, this time more sincere, as if Scotty telling her something would make it true.

They sit like that, neither of them saying anything, for minutes, and they both watch a heavily pregnant woman leaving one of the consulting rooms, flushed in the face and gripping the hand of a child no older than two, slightly stooped with the extra weight.

"What happens now?" Lilly manages to breathe, and they turn their heads at the same moment, their eyes meeting. The vulnerability in her eyes shocks him into silence for a moment, but there's pleading in her face, like she needs his answer more than anything.

"One step at a time, Lil." He murmurs.

He suddenly has a thousand things to say, in that moment, with Lilly Rush beside him, looking far more open than she had in the seven years he'd known her, but he is interrupted.

"Ms Rush?" A tired looking balding doctor stands in the doorway of one of the consulting rooms, eyes scanning the waiting room. Lilly turns away immediately, standing up, walking towards him.

"How is she?" she breathes, heart thumping in her chest, fists tense and clenched again.

"Not bad, given the circumstances. You can come through and see her now." The doctor says, his face still grave, giving nothing away. Lilly glances back at Scotty, and he gives her a small smile.

"I'll be right here." he says, as if she was asking for his reassurance, and she walks into her sister's hospital room.

The first thing Lilly thinks is how small Christina looks, attached to the IV and swamped in an oversized hospital gown. For a moment, she looks no different to the six-and-a-half year old that brought her big sister a roughly hacked ham sandwich the day after her attack, which she couldn't eat anyway with her broken jaw, but she crumbled up and threw it out of the window for the birds, so as not to hurt Christina's feelings.

The younger Rush sister looks up at Lilly through wide, scared eyes, and Lilly feels the pangs of guilt in her stomach, as if somehow there was something more she could have done.

"Chris…" she breathes, perching on the side of the bed beside her sister, half wringing her hands, almost at a loss as to what to say. Christina's face and arms, what Lilly can see of them, are black and blue, and it looks as if it's painful every time she breathes.

"I'm… I'm so sorry…" she manages to murmur, clasping her sister's hand in her own, staring down at their fingers, melded together. Lilly's slightly paler, slightly rougher, her fingers slightly longer and thinner. Unimpressive differences, really. Not enough to define quite why Lilly wasn't there to save her sister, why there's this rift between them she's not sure will ever close. A rift defined by so many things – a subconscious resent at losing a childhood mothering both a mother and a little sister, an unfaithful fiancé, money, taken without so much as a word, the man in the waiting room… _that thought _flits through her mind without leaving much in its wake, because today's gone beyond worrying about things like that.

When she looks up, there are tear tracks running down Christina's face, and she's chewing her lip like she always had done when she had something to say. Lilly opens her mouth to say something, but her sister gets there first.

"It's not your fault, Lil…" a tiny, bitter smile touches her lips, "It's never been your fault, not any of it… I ruin everything I touch, Lil… I can't seem to help it… I've always been the one that's ruined everything between us…"

"Chris, it doesn't-"

Christina holds up a hand, weakly. "Don't you go saying it doesn't matter. We both know that I've ruined more than one thing for you, and it's me who should be sorry, not you…" she takes a deep, shaky breath, broken ribs restricting her sighs. "She's the only good thing I've ever done… her name's Eleanor… Ellie Lilly Rush… she's almost eight months old…" Lilly watches her eyes well up, her fingers clench and unclench in a gesture she guesses is somehow genetic, "It scares me how much I love her, Lil… I've never understood Mom until now, but I… I love her, but I'm no good for her…"

"We'll figure it out, Chris. You'll be able to be a mother to her…"

Christina shakes her head, and Lilly sees her fingers shaking as they grip the thin hospital sheets. "Not like this. I'm not leaving this hospital 'til I'm clean. I've already spoken to one of the doctors… I can go straight from here to the rehabilitation ward…" those big wide eyes stare up at her sister, "I have to do this, Lil."

There's a silence hanging over the hospital room as Lilly realises this might be the first selfless thing her sister has ever tried to do, and Christina tries to figure out how to ask her sister for one more thing, when she's spent her whole life asking for favours she can't even pay for in sisterhood, in friendship.

"Will you take Ellie?" she whispers, and the last semblance of colour drains from Lilly's face, her heart thuds, her body goes cold.

_Will you take Ellie? _Christina had asked so much of her throughout her life, and nothing had ever come close to being as much as this.

"I don't know, Chris, I'd be terrible at looking after a baby…"

"Please, Lil, you're all she has… I can't stay here unless I know there's someone to take care of her…"

Lilly remembers tucking a blanket around her mother, passed out on the couch in a vodka-induced haze, before reading herself a bedtime story. She remembers the year her mother forgot her both hers and Christina's birthdays, and she let hers pass without a thought, but wrapped a bag of lollipops up in pink paper for her sister's. She looks at Christina warily, and for a moment, she sees the parallels to her mother, and a chill runs through her. No matter how hard it will be, no matter how terrible at it she knows she'll be, she can't condemn Ellie to the childhood she had.

"Ok…" she breathes, and her sister lets out a huge, shaking sob, smiling at Lilly through tear-filled eyes.

"Thank you." She breathes, and somehow it's not just for this promise, it's for the first fourteen years of her life being as normal as a sister could make them, it's about the thousands of times she's been undeservingly forgiven, it's about saving her tonight, it's about everything.

The sound of a throat clearing interrupts them. Lilly turns, and the doctor from earlier is standing in the doorway.

"Ms Rush needs to get some rest, I'm afraid." He says stiffly. "It's only a few broken ribs and some internal bruising, but she needs her sleep. You'll be able to visit when she's moved to the rehabilitation ward tomorrow morning."

She gives Christina a small smile; squeezing her hand in place of a hundred thoughts she can't quite form words with yet.

"I'll see you soon." She breathes. "I'll take care of her."

Tears roll down Christina Rush's face as her sister, her better half, walks out of the door.

* * *

He seems so natural, when she spots him as she turns the corner, holding Ellie, dancing his fingers in front of her face, whispering something in unintelligible baby talk. He looks up when he sees her, and his smile is infectious, no matter how long and trying her day has been. She sits, almost nervously, beside him, reaching out tentatively to stroke the side of her niece's face with one finger.

"She's been given a clean bill of health." He smiles, pulling faces at the baby, who simply stares at him with wide blue eyes. _Lilly's eyes, _he thinks, but pushes the thought away.

"Her name's Ellie." Lilly whispers, for a long moment unable to take her eyes off her niece. Scotty's eyes flick to her face, and he spots something there Lilly won't even recognise in herself for a long while. She already loves the little girl.

"I spoke to the doctors, and you're fine to take her home, you're her next of kin." He says, and as they stand up, Scotty passing the tiny, featherlike child into her arms, she wonders how on earth he could have known she'd agree to look after Ellie, when she didn't even think she would herself until Christina's eyes had begged her to. He gives her a small smile, teases his finger away from the baby's grasp and starts to walk towards the exit.

"I'll drive you home."

**Hope you liked the start, there'll be more up soon! Any reviews are appreciated!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for all your feedback so far... you're being so nice, you're getting another update slightly quicker than once a week at the moment! Hope you all still enjoy!**

**_Two_**

Whatever's outside the car flashes past the windows like it's not even there, Lilly holding Ellie close to her chest, the baby sleeping, her aunt's arms folded tentatively around her, Scotty driving about half the speed limit until they can get their hands on a baby car seat. One of Ellie's little hands curls around Lilly's thumb in her sleep, and she finds herself engrossed in the child, marvelling at the tiny fingernails, the tiny eyelashes, the tiny, podgy arms and legs, her little button nose, her tiny slight-smile.

Scotty glances across at her, a small smile creeping subconsciously onto his face, his eyes flickering between Lil and the baby and the road.

"How was Chris?" he says cautiously, and as the words leave his mouth he's not sure how she'll take them, given everything in the past, but she gives an exhausted smile, meets his eyes and nods slowly.

"Not too bad, all things considered. She's… she's going straight to rehab to get off the drugs when she's discharged…"

He supposes everything that's happened today cancels out everything that's gone before.

"She'll figure it out, Lil. She'll be all right."

Lilly looks down at Ellie. "She doesn't have another choice."

The silence is somewhere between uncomfortable and forgiving as streetlights periodically light their faces and they dart unsure, questioning glances at one another. Ellie gurgles slightly and wrinkles her nose, but gives no other signal she's planning on waking up any time soon. Lilly strokes her fingers absent-mindedly over the baby's clenched fist, the few baby supplies the hospital had given her packed between her knees, a few nappies, a small box of formula milk and a bottle…

It's in that moment that the enormity of her situation hits her. She hasn't got the first clue about what to do with the baby, not tonight, not any night, and certainly not for the weeks Christina will be in rehab.

"Scotty…" she whispers, not taking her eyes off Ellie's face. He turns his head slightly to her, glancing at her wide, scared eyes, and it's as if he can see into her worries.

"You're gon' take good care of her, Lil, don't worry about that…"

She gives a small smile, and it'll do, given the circumstances. "I'm sorry, about… about earlier…"

Their argument seems light years ago, but the similarities to his first encounter with Christina hadn't escaped him then, and he hasn't forgotten them now. It seems that when the younger Rush is in his life, he screws everything up with the older sister. He has two distinct memories of her yelling at him to prove it.

_You lied to my face._

"I'm sorry, too." He says, and for a second lifts his hand off the steering wheel, as if to reach for hers, but she's not looking, and her arms are all wrapped up in her niece, and he considers it a ridiculous idea anyway.

"I only considered leaving the Precinct for half a moment…"

"It's ok, Lil… it's nothin' to do with me, anyway…"

She blinks at that, like she disagrees. "It seemed like a good idea for a whole two seconds when Ryan suggested it and then-" she doesn't notice her partner bristle slightly at the mention of the FBI agent's name – Scotty's always been able to read her better than she knew, and her interaction with Special Agent Kavanagh had left him uneasy. "-I'm Philly PD, that's not going to change."

"I wouldn't have blamed you, though." He attempts, all fiery arguments forgotten after everything they've been through today, calm compromise replacing harsh words and thick voices. "The pay must be a helluva lot better."

She laughs lightly, and he's relieved at that. The quiet falls between them for a moment, and Ryan Kavanagh crosses Lilly's mind, however briefly. She'd thought he might call her or something, not that she'd wanted him too, it would make things too complicated, what with Saccardo and Scotty and everything.

She swallows, realising that _that _train of thought has taken her in the direction of her partner. She feels a slight blush rising in her pale cheeks, but puts the mental slip down to sheer exhaustion and the fact that she's with him right now.

That said, she can't seem to mind that she'll probably never hear from the FBI agent again.

"I shouldn've said what I said earlier…" he murmurs, not taking his eyes off the road, "And I should've told you earlier about Chris, I jus'-"

"Water under the bridge, Scotty." She sighs. "But I'm not leaving, I promise."

He pointedly checks his wing mirror, but he can't help the slight smile creeping onto his face. "Good." He whispers, so low she can't be sure whether she heard it at all, and keeps driving into the night.

* * *

She passes him the key and he opens the door to her apartment for her and Ellie, the little girl still sleeping soundly. He steps in behind her, closing the door gently behind him, setting the baby things the hospital had given them for Ellie down, and then gently lifting the baby out of Lilly's arms, wordlessly, touching her little button nose lightly with one finger.

"You be good, little lady…" he whispers to the baby, and Lilly feels a strange emotion catch her unawares, and she turns away from him for a moment, unwelcome, misunderstood tears stinging her eyes.

"You ok, Lil?" he asks in a low voice, but quite a different tone to the one he used with the baby moments before.

She considers brushing him off, but then decides for everything he's done, he deserves a little more than that. He deserves a little piece of her, to fall only partway to making up for every little bit of himself he was always so willing to share with her.

"I'm not sure I can do this." She says, her voice catching on the third word, her fists clenching at her sides, a certain degree of self-loathing kicking in. "I can't take care of a baby on my own, what was I thinking?… Scotty, I-"

He sets Ellie gently down on the corner of the couch for a second, his hand snaking lightly out from underneath her soft head, sprinkled with fair hair. Then he takes Lilly by the shoulders, holding her at arms length, and ice blue eyes fall forward into his dark ones.

"Hey…" he whispers, his left thumb brushing against the skin of her arm, tracing fire through her thin shirt. "You're not on your own…"

She opens her mouth to argue, but he lifts a finger, and for a moment she thinks that maybe if he places it against her lips she won't be fully in control of her actions, but it hovers in front of her face, in danger of making her go slightly cross-eyed. She doesn't speak.

"I think I've fallen for that little one over there already…" he smiles, nodding towards the sleeping baby. "I'm here whenever you need me."

She's never been one for accepting help from anyone, but the desperation of the situation and the continual lump in her throat, coupled with the honesty in Scotty's voice, make her smile slightly and whisper a thank you too low for him to hear.

For a moment neither of them says another word, staring each other out, as if it's a stalemate that they don't dare to break, and then a third voice cuts through the silence, a loud cry. Lilly pulls away immediately, pulling Ellie into her arms, patting her gently on the back as Scotty reaches into the bag for one of the baby bottles, and walks into her kitchen to fill it. She rocks the little girl, easing her crying into a tiny whimper, burying her head in the soft hair, wondering how to place the smell of the child's soft skin.

When she remembers with a jolt, she's bottle-feeding Ellie in her kitchen, Scotty leaning against the refrigerator, staring out the window into the artificial twilight. It's one of the first things she remembers in her life, the first time she held her little sister, hardly four years old herself, burying her head in Christina's mop of fair hair and promising someone – she's pretty sure it was Santa – that she would take care of her sister. Tears threaten in her eyes, and she's grateful Scotty's otherwise occupied, and she blinks them away, stroking a finger over her niece's cheek.

Ellie finishes the bottle, blows a tiny bubble and stares up at Lilly with wide blue eyes, completely content, for a moment.

"If you wanna head out, Scotty..." Lilly starts, and he turns to her, an expression on his face she can't quite read.

"I…" he starts, but then shakes his head slightly to himself, eyes darting between Lilly and the baby. "I'll come round in the morning; bring more baby things, anythin' you think you'll need…"

"You don't have to-"

"I want to." is He says firmly, giving her his thousand-watt smile, leaning forward and kissing Ellie on the cheek. With her niece in her arms, his proximity stuns them both, but he continues to smile, slightly too close to her face, staring slightly too directly into her eyes. "See you in the mornin', Lil."

She can do nothing but smile slightly until he closes the door behind him.

**As always, I'm always grateful for your lovely reviews!**


	3. Chapter 3

**_Three_**

The screaming won't stop, and every time Lilly looks at the clock she's dismayed by how much time's passed, how late the hour is. She's changed her niece's diaper, she's fed her, burped her, checked her diaper again, taken her temperature – nothing seems to work. The only thing that will keep Ellie quiet for more than a second is being held close to Lilly's chest, constantly pacing up and down the apartment, and even then she's whimpering slightly.

"What is it, little one?" Lilly whispers, stroking the soft hair on Ellie's head, "I don't know what it is you want…"

As expected, she receives no coherent answer, only a slight wail, and she resumes her walking at a fevered pace. She's terrified, more terrified than she's ever been facing any gun-wielding perp or being chasing by any serial killer; she can't figure out what's wrong with the baby and with every passing moment that her ears are still ringing with screams, she concocts more terrible worst case scenarios in her head. Ellie falls silent for seconds at a time, and Lilly dares to believe that it might be time for the child to fall asleep now, her night might be over, but it's always just a lull in the screaming, a pause for her niece to take another deep breath, feed the wailing lungs.

"Shhh, Ellie…" she whispers, "Go to sleep…"

She feels ridiculous – Ellie clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the words, and as she watches the hands of the clock tick over into what can no longer be called night but has to now be classified as the early hours of the morning, her feeling of inadequacy only increases.

It's like this child knows that she knows nothing about taking care of babies, that's she's so underprepared that she only has enough milk and diapers for the next day, that she doesn't have a crib for the baby to sleep in. Ellie knows it's not her mother holding her, but she's not old enough to understand what Lilly's doing in taking on this burden for her sister; she's not old enough to understand why it's not the stale cigarette smoke smell of her own mother holding her. Lilly feels a lump rising in her throat, wondering then, in her moment of complete crisis, whether she'll actually be any better for this little girl than Christina – she quells the thought, almost instantly. She's a lot of things, Lilly Rush, but she's never been a quitter, and as long as this baby is screaming at her, she's going to try everything to calm her down.

Ellie's crying doesn't stop until Lilly can see the beginnings of light poking through her apartment curtains, until the clock reads 4:29. She watches her niece's eyes close with baited breath, and as the infant's breathing finally slows she allows herself a sigh of relief. Ellie puffs out her cheeks and her mouth forms into a round "o"; her aunt holds her breath, waiting for the wailing to continue. But her eyes stay closed, her mouth forms gently around a yawn, and then she wriggles slightly, nestling her face slightly closer to the warm skin of the woman holding her, and falls into sleep.

_Beautiful. _That's the only word Lilly can think of to describe Ellie sleeping. Fair haired, with long fair eyelashes, full-cheeked, mouth slightly upturned… she sinks slowly into a chair, slightly in awe.

She's never made anything as wonderful as this child Christina produced by accident. She, with her near perfect case record and her stacking numbers of solved homicides, will never leave a mark on this world so perfect, so valuable. There's familiarity in the tiny face, though, and it slightly unsettles her. Christina's nose, maybe, or was it her mother's? Those blue eyes; something in the turn up of her mouth. She can read her family there, all dysfunction, addiction and disaster purified on the little girl's skin. She wonders, briefly, what was different between her and Christina, what had driven them to such obscure poles, what had made Christina warm and haphazard and irresponsible and disastrous, and what had made Lilly cold, driven, solitary and calm. She'd raised Christina the best way a child could, and anything Christina got out of her during those years was more than Lilly got out of their mother… Their mother. She'd been pushing the picture of Christina in the hospital bed with the wild eyes and the far-off look away, but it came crashing through now – there was something very _Ellen _about her. Something that sent goosebumps down Lilly's spine.

In the end, what had made Christina turn into their mother when Lilly had loathed everything she'd stood for until the day she died?

She makes a vow, then, tracing her niece's tiny fingers. She wouldn't let a third generation repeat itself. Ellie would make better choices than her mother and grandmother, Ellie would find herself a place in this world that was stable, which was calm, where she was safe.

Her own emotions stun her slightly. This baby, this child she'd met merely hours ago, she was now swearing she'd protect, despite the cost.

In her sleep, Ellie's tiny fist curls around Lilly's thumb, and she allows herself to lean her head back on the couch, head coming to rest on top of the cushions; she lets her eyes slowly drift closed.

* * *

Scotty rings the doorbell, the Moses basket, formula milk, nappies and a pink elephant he had spontaneously chosen for her in some sort of sordid pile on the steps below him. For minutes he waits there whilst Lilly doesn't answer, worried thoughts flitting through his head, the beginning of panic stemming in his gut when he happens to be glancing through the window and he sees the reason behind his door ringing not getting answered – Lilly sound asleep on the sofa, with Ellie sound asleep in her arms.

He has a spare key somewhere, he is really hoping he's brought it out with him today, because she looks so perfect like that, her head back against the top of the couch, hair fanning out behind her, he doesn't want to wake her. He roots deep in the pocket of his work coat, which by chance he'd just flung over his shoulders when he saw the clouds outside this morning, and there is something there. Unsure at the moment whether it is his spare key or a key for his work locker or something else useless in this situation, he goes rummaging around to pull it out, and holds it up in front of his face, praying it will be the right key. It is, and he can't help the wide smile splitting over his face as he uses it to open the door quietly, and he is greeted by Tripod giving him a slight hiss from where he'd been sat by the doorway, clearly anyone coming through the door was merely interruption to his sleeping attempt, but as Scotty is attempting to force everything he'd bought for Ellie through the door, he scuttles away, hobbling into the kitchen.

He walks into the living room, and when he sees them, he has to sit down for a second, gather himself. Lilly's leaning her head back against the edge of the couch, as if in a last, desperate attempt to get some sleep, and Ellie's curled up in her arms, almost as if she hasn't even noticed her mother isn't there, that she actually quite likes sleeping with her auntie like that. Something hits his foot lightly, and he looks down to find a bottle half full of milk rolling gently across the floor, as if it's fallen off of Lilly's lap hours ago. He watches his partner, feeling something almost alien gripping his stomach, inside him, and it takes him moments to realise this was how he used to feel when he was watching Elissa sleep. The feelings wrap themselves around him, and he thinks yet again, as he's been thinking of it many times overnight, how grateful he is Lilly isn't going anywhere. He thinks of the way she was around Kavanagh, the slightly too much contact and the looks he saw between them, that told him, though she never would, that there was something going on between them. He remembers the way he noticed the lust follow her in Ryan Kavanagh's eyes, he remembers the slightly shy, hopeful look in her own when she met his to start off with, before she realised and pulled herself back into check. He thinks about the way it's been between them, and for how many years it's been, and he thinks that's he got so used to having his partner around him that he wouldn't be comfortable doing what he's doing without her. That feels heavy to him, but he feels he would get used to it eventually; he'd just take a serious amount of adjusting. He'd be lonely, he's not sure he could find anyone else who would take her place, who would be the same to him.

He leans his head back against the sofa for a moment in a mirror of her, trying to make the thought leave his mind, not wanting to deal with the thought that feelings like that about someone, that was more than friendship. He thinks about the way the little girl had already made him love her, and whether it was something to do with the sprinkling of blonde hair on her head, the sky blue of her eyes; Ellie looked like her aunt. Sighing slightly, that wasn't helping him to push this away; he focuses on the pair of them, looking at how peaceful they both look when they were sleeping.

He feels an immediate pang, feeling guilty he'd left Lilly with her, wondering how long it had taken both of them to fall asleep, and wondering what he could have done to persuade her to let him stay there. To let him lay his hand in there to start off with, that whilst Christina was in rehab, he wanted to be giving all the help he could give to looking after Ellie. Who, as he watches, stirs slightly and her eyelids flicker open. Immediately, without even a chance to think, he eases Ellie out of Lilly's arms, wrapping her in his, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Hello, little one." He whispers, running a hand through the blonde hair he'd been considering minutes ago, hardly noticing the smile she automatically makes break out on his face, the twinkle she gives to his eyes. He sighs slightly, trying to imagine how different his life would have been if what had happened to Elissa hadn't happened to her, if they'd gotten married, if he'd had children of his own… He finds himself sighing, because for the first time in his life he wasn't looking back at that with only regret, with only pain, he was seeing one way his life could have gone, but actually realising he had some sort of love for the life he had now. He swallows slightly, thinking it has something to do with the woman his eyes are on, the woman he is staring at in front of him.

The woman who now flicks those eyelids open, looking up at him in a slightly confused manner. And then he watches her as she goes to try and take Ellie's hand, and he translates the panic that flits across her face when she realises the baby isn't there. He smiles slightly, their eyes catching, and he watches her gaze flick down to Ellie in his arms, and a slight relaxation travel back onto her face. Tucking Ellie almost effortlessly away under one arm, he picks up a throw from the back of the couch and wraps it around her, smiling down at those still half asleep eyes.

"You go back to sleep…" he whispers, the thought of pressing a kiss to her forehead not leaving his mind, "I'll take Ellie for a while…"

She smiles at him, in a way it will take him some serious getting used to, a way that makes his heart race a little, his stomach tie itself in knots. But her eyes close gently, and her head tilts to one side, and he is suddenly left with sleeping Lilly and Ellie in his arms.

"Come on then, little one." He whispers to the little girl as he takes steps out of the lounge, "What shall we do?"

It's as if she realises then that the person that's holding her is not her mother or her aunt, and her face begins to screw up. She literally gives him the seconds it takes to shut the lounge door on Lilly, give her a little bit of privacy, when she bursts into tears that despite everything he's managing to be impressed with how low she can make them, and without stopping to think, he whisks her into the kitchen, grasping her tightly in his arms, rocking her slightly in his arms, trying to force her wailing out of his mind as he makes her up some formula milk and warms it slowly in Lilly's microwave. He presses a light kiss to Ellie's cheek before letting her have a suck on the bottle, immediately making her crying disappear and bringing a slight smile to Scotty's face as he realises to start off with he's guessed correctly what she wants, and that's got to be a start, hasn't it?

After she's drank almost the whole bottle he changes her diaper and manages to unlock Lilly's back door to get to the bin, leaving it slightly open to let some of the slight breeze makes its way into the room that the slight increase in summer weather May had brought had made a little stuffy. He then changes Ellie's baby grow into something he'd bought for her on his spontaneous trip of buying baby things this morning, and though it's a little big for her, it could be the worse way round, so he just presses another little kiss to her skin, and can't help the grin he has himself as her mouth turns into a little smile.

"You're a very pretty little girl, you know that?" he says to her, giving her nose a little poke, making her laugh a little, "You look a lot like your auntie, actually… she's gon' take such good care of you…"

**And I just want to say thank you for all your lovely reviews so far, I'm grateful for all of them, keep them coming!**


	4. Chapter 4

**_Four_**

She's been having some sort of dream about dancing giraffes. But, maybe slightly because of all of its insanity, her dream is slipping away from her and she's blinking her eyes open a couple of time, taking in where she's sat – her lounge, she remembers Ellie's refusal to sleep for hours – and the state of the sunshine illustrating to her that it's at least midday, if not later. She smiles slightly, thinking Ellie's been asleep for a long time, a seconds after that she realises the baby she is thinking of is not in her arms. She jumps then, panic flooding through her, all remnants of sleep have disappeared, she's darting up from the couch. She's faced off murderers, she's faced off serial killers, and in that moment there's nothing scarier to her than falling asleep with your niece in your arms to wake up without her.

She darts forward, moving towards the door, and that's when she realises. The door's closed, something she wouldn't have done herself, and all of a sudden what's happened is flooding back to her, Scotty's face centimetres above hers, him tucking the blanket around her shoulders, walking away with Ellie in his arms, smiling, whispering something she can't make out to the baby. She smiles for a moment, considering the domesticity of all of this, the pattern they've fallen into together. She opens the door, takes a step out of the living room, calling out for Scotty; when she hears his voice it's clear he's replying to her from upstairs. She climbs up then, the neck and back stiffening slightly from the awkward position Ellie determined her sleeping in, attempting to give them a slight stretch out. She sees Scotty in her spare room, and she finds it beautiful when she looks in it, a Moses basket in one corner, with her light above it, a baby gym out on the floor, with Scotty sat on it, playing with a slightly dazed looking Ellie, who's dressed in something different. She finds a smile breaking out on her face before she can even think about, and this draws Scotty's attention and he turns to her.

"Hey, Lil. Good sleep?"

"Yes, thanks." She smiles, looking at how perfectly he fits in with her niece, how easy their company is to each other. "You ok to look out for her for another twenty minutes or so, I'm just going to get in to a quick shower?"

"Sure." He smiles at her, and she feels that look on his face catch across her heart. "We're having fun, aren't we, Peanut?"

She can't come up with anything then, but as she walks to the shower she thinks how comfortable he is with all of it, giving Ellie a nickname after less than 24 hours of even knowing her. She likes the feeling the water cascading over her head, down her shoulders, gives her. It's like she's been on something, and the water is clearing her mind, removing her from the addiction, but she finds the water makes it easier for her to grasp everything that's been going on in the last couple of days. She'd been daring to consider leaving the cold case squad, which, now she thinks about it, really was ridiculous, she's found her sister on heroin, she's found another member of her family, and for once, one who can't be blamed for anything.

She can't hold it off any longer; suddenly how close she's been with Scotty these past few days comes crossing her mind. There's something almost concerningly domestic about the way he's in her house, looking after her niece, the way he's let himself in when she was sleeping. She wants to find something negative to counter it, but she can't help the warm feeling it leaves in her stomach, the way it makes her throat catch slightly pleasantly. She steps out of the shower, pushing all these thoughts right back into the most far point of her mind, concentrating on towel drying herself and pulling some comfortable clothes on, running the towel over her hair and checking her face briefly in the mirror to make sure she doesn't appear like she's got two black eyes.

She walks through slowly into the spare room and finds a beautiful sight, Ellie curled up in the Moses basket, sleeping. She takes herself silently down the stairs so as not to disturb anything, and finds Scotty in her kitchen, washing up some of Ellie's milk bottles, whistling to himself. She leans against the doorframe for a second, just watching him, before she clears her throat and he realises she's there.

"How're you holdin' up?" he says, turning away from the sink, running his eyes all over her. For a moment she doesn't feel completely comfortable with him looking at her, something about the expression in his eyes makes her a little wary, suddenly, of what she could be getting herself into. But she pushes the thought away, and gives him a smile.

"Thank you so much for giving me that sleep! I'm feeling really good actually, needed a rest… that wasn't Ellie's idea of fun last night…" she smiles, thinking he'll laugh back, but he frowns at her slightly.

"Lil… you know I mean about Christina, about all of this…"

Her heart lurches, she's not prepared to come up with the answer he'll take perfectly to this question and she swallows, almost making a sound.

"Doing ok, actually. And I was thinking about it last night Scotty… and I'm having Ellie as long as I have to, Scotty, I've gotten through the night, haven't I?" she sighs slightly, "I'm not sure what that's going to mean for work, if I'm going to have to take some time off or something… I'll have to clear it all with Stillman on Monday, but it should be easy enough…"

"He'll let you do anything, and you've just gotta remember, I'll do for you all I can; me…" he laughs a little, "Me and Ellie, we're already close…"

Something flashes across his face she doesn't quite recognise, and he gives her a slight smile, and she returns it. He takes a step closer to her then, and she can't deny the slight rise in her heart rate there is, the way she breathes a little quicker. "Lil… Christina will be out, and right as rain before you know it…"

She gives him a small smile, but she can't help what's flicking through her mind at the moment, she's considering whether Christina will ever be a good enough mother to that little girl, where she's had to learn it from. Countless memories cross her mind, saying happy birthday to herself in the morning and being the only one, the pain she got for months from that broken jaw, learning far too young how to tuck a blanket round her mother when she was passed out on the couch. That's when she knows, and she makes a silent vow to herself. She's never letting Ellie have the childhood she had – she wouldn't wish that upon anyone.

* * *

They're, all three of them, in a shop later, getting a pram for Ellie, so they can start taking her out; walking her round the nicer ends of Philadelphia. Lilly and Scotty have a little bicker, half laughing, as they try to choose the one they like the most. They eventually select one, and they're waiting in the queue, talking about the meeting they just did with Christina, finding she's already checked herself into the rehab ward, and she'd been very thankful multiple times to Lilly, thanking her over and over for taking care of Ellie. Lilly had accepted all the thanks, but she couldn't help feeling a little fraudulent with that, realising as Christina spoke, that the thing she was being thanked for she'd already fallen for, she was already finding wonderful. It had taken both her and Scotty less than 12 hours to fall head over heels for her niece, to the point where she was already slightly dreading the point where she'd have to give Ellie back over to Christina, already anticipating the tears losing her would drive her to. She smiles slightly at herself, thinking how different that is to what she'd expected as she carried Ellie out of the hospital.

They reach the cashier, smiling to each other, Scotty holding Ellie in her baby carrier for the moment, watching her tenderly as her eyes shut gently, as she falls into sleep. The woman at the cash register smiles at her, scanning the barcode for the pram, the other baby clothes they've bought her, the many more packets of formula milk.

"She's beautiful." She says, cheer in her voice, "She's the image of you," she says to Lilly before she takes a glance over at Scotty, "She's got her father's jaw though."

"Thank you." Lilly says, smiling, having not even realised yet what the woman's been saying. When she does, her mouth turns dry in a second, she can't even bring herself to swallow, the nausea rising in her throat. One look at Scotty and she can tell he's having something of the same reaction, his face instantly white as a sheet, his fists slightly more clenched than they were a second before. She should say something, she knows that, but she can't bring the words up in her throat and in moments they've paid and they're moving on.

Without any corrections.

**More thanks to all your lovely feedback so far, and thank you very much, honestly, for those anonymous reviews I can't reply to!**


	5. Chapter 5

**You'll all be pleased to know Breathe Me's completely finished on my computer now, I've got it finished! It's going to be 13 chapters and an epilogue, you should be gonna get slightly more frequent updates now!**

**_Five_**

You'd think he would be ready for it, Stillman, staring out of the window from his office to suddenly see his two detectives getting out of that car in the parking lot, that girl he'd been teaching for almost her whole career, who he'd taken from a girl just out of uniform, knowing hardly anything, to a cold case homicide detective, that boy he'd taken out of vice squad, that boy who the team hadn't been ready to have with them, who hadn't even fully wanted to be there, but had worked out wonderfully with them. He feels strangely to both of them slightly fatherly, he knows Scotty's had the perfect family, and Lilly's the polar opposite of him, with a dead, alcoholic mother and a non-existent father, so she's the only one that needs a father figure, and he knows honestly she doesn't need anything, but he thinks it gives him some sort of comfort being that way towards both of them. That's the moment when he has the shock of his life, when Lilly's fussing for a second with something out of the back of the car, and then we she steps away; she's got a baby in her arms, dressed in warming pale pink baby clothes.

Scotty's leaning, very close to Lilly, cooing to the baby, whose face is slightly bewildered by it all, but she's got a smile on her face, and she's the image of Lilly, that baby there, a few short blonde curls wrapped around the top of her head, her eyes a crystal blue.

"Boss, what are you-" that's Kat Miller walking in to ask him something, and then spotting what he's spotted out of the window. "Oh, Christ."

Neither of them have anything to say for the moment they watch Scotty and Lilly ambling up the few steps to PPD, both their attentions completely focused on the baby in Lilly's arms. For a moment neither Stillman nor Kat can say anything, their words trapped in their mouths, and then Stillman thinks he needs to take a seat and sinks into the one behind his desk, taking a deep breath, when Kat manages to find her voice. "Have I been missing something _huge _the last nine months, Boss?" she half-whispers, as if she's choking on the word, "Hell, that's not even a newborn baby… she must be… she must…" she trails off, unable to provide them with an excuse for this situation. There's absolutely no explanation. She leans heavily against the window, keeping her eyes firmly attached to them until they walk into the building, and they've disappeared from her vision for the moment.

"They'll be up here in a moment." Stillman says slowly, and he's found his voice, but there's some element of shock in it, something slightly different about the tone behind his words.

"What the… what the hell is going on?" Kat continues, staring down at her feet now, as if they might provide her with some kind of answer to the sight out of the window, which to her seems as impossible as the Boss suddenly announcing to her that dragons were real…

They're the exact words she presents to Scotty and Lilly as they walk through the doors, into their Squad Room, and they both stop where they are standing, slightly in surprise, almost as if they haven't thought about all the explaining they were going to need to be doing.

"She's Chris… this is Ellie, my niece." Lilly says slowly, and there's something behind her voice that tells Kat and Boss that there's already something she's unsure of, as if she can't quite work out whether that's the case or not. "My sister… Christina's in the hospital… she's going into rehab…" she takes a deep breath, and not one of them in the room misses the way Scotty squeezes her wrist lightly to pass her some confidence, "So Ellie's with me for however long it takes…"

There's silence then, because no one knows quite how to follow that, and for a moment it's just pitying smiles that are greeting her from all the other members of her squad. Then Scotty leans over to wiggle his fingers in Ellie's face, laughing, playing a game, and then they're all coming over to greet the little girl, passing on both their condolences to Lilly for the situation, and their promises of help with whatever she needs. She barely hears them, she's too busy looking around the room, thinking of her life for the last however many years; her life here, opening the age-old murder cases, solving things that had previously been written unsolvable, and how Ellie's doing everything, right at this moment, to change that. To make everything as much more difficult as possible. She passes Ellie, almost wordlessly, to Scotty, without even thinking, they've already done it so many times, and she walks aside with Stillman for a moment.

"Lil, I'm so sorry this has all happened to you… look, I don't know what you're planning on doing with regard to working at the moment, what with Ellie and everything, but you have to know I'll be letting you do whatever is necessary… whatever hours you need to do to get around her… even if you need some time out whilst you're her primary carer… you've done everything for this job for as long as you've had it, Lil, it's time for us to do whatever we can for you…"

"Thank you." She breathes, barely making a sound at all, and Stillman smiles slightly, already hearing something in her voice that's different, already telling him that somehow motherhood suits her.

A loud wailing from across the room draws them instantly out of it… and Ellie's wailing in Scotty's arms, and there's a grin on Miller's face because of it, and as they start to move outside she's commenting, laughing all the while.

"I don't envy you at all…" she smirks, cooing over Ellie anyway and kissing her on the forehead, "I prefer Veronica much more now she lets me sleep all night, believe me…"

And Scotty and Lilly leave with a nod and a smile, and it's not until all three of them are in his car that he turns to her, reading her slightly pale face, her slightly stunned expression in seconds. "You alright?" he asks under his breath, so quiet she can barely hear it, "Lil?"

She gives him a small smile, and to people that just glance into the window of the car it means nothing, if there's someone who's hearing the conversation it would be merely a reassurance she is alright, but to Scotty, who knows her all too well, it means everything. Quite literally, everything. It is a thank you in seconds for his inquiry; he reads something in it she'll never put into words. There's some kind of gratitude in there she'll never have the courage to voice.

* * *

The drive home's in some kind of companionable silence; it gives Scotty a few minutes to think that their years by each other's sides must have made them pretty close… they must have made them very good friends to make this silence, this absence of any sound, not awkward, but somehow friendly. Like they do both understand the other half of their partnership needs quiet, needs to run the thoughts through their head totally uninterrupted, for now. When they get to her house, Ellie's already got her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open, the perfect and dishonest picture of peaceful sleep.

"You wanna come in for coffee?" Lilly says as she's lifting her niece out of the car seat, and Scotty smiles and nods, both of them forgetting how in any other situation, if that baby wasn't in her arms, this would be the awkward question at the end of a third or fourth date, depending on which one of them was asking it, and neither of them can deny that there is something here that feels like that. Something that feels slightly too close. Scotty smiles, nods and agrees, and she's put the coffee maker on before taking Ellie upstairs in her arms, to put her to bed, smiling slightly to herself at Scotty stood, looking slightly uncomfortable, to the side of her kitchen, being stared at by Tripod and Olivia. She settles Ellie in the cot gently, spontaneously pressing a light kiss to her forehead, and is heading down the stairs when she smells something cooking from her kitchen, Scotty leaning over the stove, frying something in her wok.

He turns round, a big grin on his face like a child on Christmas morning. "It's stir fry, Lil, from what vegetables I could find and some chicken out your freezer…"

He looks both so pleased with himself and so excited for her reaction that she doesn't have it in her to turn his half-cooked meal down, but she shakes her head gently at him.

"Scotty, you didn't have to-"

"Shush." He laughs slightly, giving the stir-fry another quick stir with the spoons. "You wouldn've had time, you're busy lookin' after Ellie… let me do something, Lil…"

* * *

It's only about ten minutes before he's serving it up, on her kitchen table, for the two of them, pouring her a long glass of wine and giving her an invaluable. Later, when she thinks about it, she'll think maybe there was something in the water that day, or something in his stir-fry, but she finds herself being almost out-of-character with how open she is over dinner. Scotty gets to hear nearly all her stories about her childhood with Christina, the half-broken birthdays, the difficult nights, how she'd been practically responsible for raising her sister. There's… she supposes there's just something in the air tonight that makes her more eager to talk, but in reality there's something in his eyes, something in the way he looks at her that makes her think he's ready to listen to anything she has to say.

"… and I'm just… I'm just scared she's not ready to be a mother, and I don't know anything about being one myself, but I'm not going to let her do this wrong… hell, Scotty, I already love that little girl… I guess I'm scared after she sorts herself out and comes out of rehab and everything, she's still not going to be ready to do right by Ellie…"

For a second, Scotty smiles to himself, thinking how quickly the attachment to the little girl had washed over him, and how similar it sounds in what Lilly's saying. She's not going to say anything – she's not that open – but she's already beginning to dread having to say goodbye to the little girl.

"It's gon' be alright, Lil… it'll be slow, but you'll get Christina there… I'm sure it won't be that hard to convince her to stay in Philly, you can see Ellie all the time…"

After dinner, they wash up together in companionable silence, and then, just before Scotty is about to leave, he goes quickly up the stairs to kiss Ellie gently on the forehead, in a way he doesn't know and will never know how similar it is to his partner's goodnight to her niece. He's about to leave, putting his jacket over his shoulders, and where Lilly's been lurking in the back corner of her hallway, beside the stairs.

He nods his head at her slightly, murmuring a "Goodnight" when she spontaneously flings her arms round him, hugging him tightly, burying her face in her neck, squeezing slightly too closely.

"Thanks for everything, today, Scotty." She says, so quietly if there'd been any other background noise he wouldn't have been able to hear it, and then she pulls back slowly, holding eye contact, and he's not sure if he's letting himself imagine something or if she looks like there's something else she wants to say, something else she wants to do.

"You're welcome." He whispers back, in those seconds wondering what would happen if she decided to do something else, but not acting on his imagination.

When they've said their goodnights to each other and she's wished him farewell and closed the door, he stands there staring at it, unable to move for moments.

**As always, thanks so much for all your feedback so far, it's been lovely!**


	6. Chapter 6

**_Six_**

This time, when the loud sound of a crying baby wakes her, she doesn't even look at the clock. She doesn't want to know either how many or how little hours of sleep Ellie had allowed her to have this time, she'd rather not know. Whilst she doesn't know how much sleep she's had, she can pretend it's half five in the morning and she's nearly had a whole night's sleep. She laughs a little to herself as she's lifting her niece out of the Moses basket and feeding her on a bottle of milk, she doesn't even know when she began thinking of half five in the morning as a sociable hour.

It seems the same as the night before – Ellie doesn't seem to want to settle overnight. She feeds her niece, changes her diaper, burps her, even sings to her in a soft little voice, ignoring the slightly put-out looks she's getting from Tripod. She's near enough tearing her hair out, pacing up and down her house, trying to keep her niece slightly quiet if not sleeping, when she thinks about the look on Scotty's face as he closed the door between them tonight. How there was something about this situation she was in right now that somehow meant Scotty was there with her, that somehow meant she wasn't completely alone. She's remembering his face, the look in his eyes, and all she can deduce from it is that he wants to help, wherever possible.

She bites the bullet, then, and dials his number, not looking at the clock and realising the time's three o'clock until the phone's ringing.

"Hello?" comes as a whisper from the other end, and she scolds herself again internally for phoning him, phone-calls at that time in the middle of the night are always expected to be emergencies. And the biggest emergency she can come up with is that she can't get Ellie to sleep… there's something almost pathetic about it.

"Scotty, it's Lil… it's not an emergency, don't panic…" she's saying something else to him in her mind, the beginnings of some explanation as to why she's rung at this time, but she trails off.

"What's wrong?" he sounds like he is, as if he's just woken up, but there's alertness in his tone now, as if it's only taken seconds for him to wake up more forcefully.

"Ellie just won't stop screaming." She half-whispers, and it sounds all the more pathetic when she says it. She takes a minute to think, though, and realises it's not quite synonymous to if this was her baby, if she's chosen this situation. It's somehow different to judge someone in that case. "I've changed her diaper, fed her, burped her… I can't think of anything else to do, Scotty…" she sighs slightly, and hears the mirror of her sigh on the other end of the phone. "Got any bright ideas?"

"I'm comin' straight round." Are all the words she hears, and then the sounds she thinks are Scotty lifting himself out of bed, shoving a shirt on… she steels herself suddenly. She doesn't want or need to be thinking that, about Scotty getting out of bed without any clothes on…

"You don't need to, I just-"

"I'll be ten minutes, Lil… See you…" and with that he hands up the phone, leaving her staring at it in one hand, and a screaming Ellie in the other. She wrinkles her forehead a little, as if she's trying to get herself back into reality, but wherever she is right now is either her reality or considerably stronger than her, because she's not going anywhere. It's three in the morning; her niece is screaming bloody murder in her arms, and Scotty's on his way over. She's not sure things have ever been stranger.

* * *

When Scotty arrives he lets himself in and she hears him coming straight up the stairs towards her, and when she sees him she gives him a slight scowl. That's thing with men, she decides, to look this good at some unsociable hour of the morning. It's just impossibility to her. He gives her a small, almost forced smile, and produces something out of his back pocket. A small thermometer.

"I was thinkin'… something my Mom said the other week… I could take her temperature."

Lilly nods, finding when it comes down to it she doesn't even have the energy to speak.

"She's got a slight fever…" Scotty breathes after seconds of silence, and holding the thermometer to Ellie's forehead. Immediately the panic washes over his partner. She's straight away running through everything she's done with Ellie in her head, trying to find where she's done something wrong, where she's caused this. That's the type of person she's always been, it's part of what makes her so good at her job, and she's always needed to blame someone. It's no good when the only person you can blame is yourself and you're struggling to find something that's been done wrong. She sighs. She's not cut out for looking after a baby, she never has been.

"What have I done?" are the first words that come out of her mouth, in the end, and there's something almost melodramatic about how worried her voice sounds. Scotty tilts his head to one side slightly, as if he's trying to read her, and wordlessly takes Ellie out of her arms, both of their faces showing an expression of shock as the crying quietens down considerably. He rocks her slightly, not wanting to speak for a minute for fear of breaking the treasured silence.

"Nothin', Lil. This happens with babies sometimes. Let's give her some time… if she's still runnin' a fever in the morning we'll take her to the doctors, but give her a few hours… it's not even that high…"

"But I-"

He smiles, and there's something more familiar about his face than there's ever been, despite their years of friendship. "You need some sleep." He whispers, "I'll sit up with Ellie… go to bed, get a few hours rest…"

She shakes her head, almost on auto-pilot; she's never been the kind to take help. He sets Ellie down in her Moses basket for a moment, and forcibly takes Lil by the shoulders and steers her back to her own bedroom. When they get there, he stands there, dangerously close to her, and looks her directly in the eyes, fearless.

"You've done nothin' wrong, Lil. I'll sit up with Ellie, get some sleep…"

And he steps away, not even allowing his body to pause with the consideration for a second that he should kiss her goodnight, and shuts the door behind him. He hears her laugh as he leaves, and thinks he's never heard anything to wonderful.

* * *

When Scotty wakes up, something's not right. He was up for almost an hour, rocking Ellie in his arms, pacing up and down, before she finally decided it was time for a rest, and quietened. He'd settled down on the sofa with the little girl in his arms, and allowed himself to slip into sleep, furiously refusing to allow himself to think about Lilly, sleeping in the room above. He was absolutely not allowed to imagine what Lilly would look like, sleeping. But something's wrong now, and it takes him the same number of seconds to realise Ellie's not in his arms as it does for Lilly to walk over and hand him in mug of coffee, her niece resting on her hip, looking much more docile and smiling brightly at him.

"Sorry, Scotty, had to wake you… you've got work in half an hour…" she smiles, letting him take the mug from her hand, and then lifts Ellie into the air, a wide smile on her face. "She doesn't have a temperature anymore… she got quite a good rest once the two of you fell asleep… I wasn't down here 'til quarter to seven…"

He throws back a few long drinks of the coffee and stands up, leaning towards the mirror above the fireplace and roughly tousling his hair, checking he's got a work appropriate appearance.

"You both needed a good rest, I think…" he smiles at both of them, and then, unbeknownst to each other, both their heart rates are raising a little as he stands ever so slightly too close to her.

"Thank you for last night, Scotty, I… I guess there are some things, when you're starting off with a baby that you can't do alone…"

He smiles then, and completely spur of the moment, without even allowing himself to think about what he's doing before he does it, he kisses her gently on the cheek. He follows the kiss to Lilly's cheek with a kiss to Ellie's forehead, not allowing himself to even look at her afterwards, and his smile widens slightly.

"I've gotta go pick up a couple of files from home… so I'll see you two this evening?"

He's rendered her speechless, she's still nursing the feel of his lips over her cheek, but she nods quickly and gives him a slight smile as he leaves the house.

She sits down then, with Ellie, on her sofa, and for moments she's chastising herself for still feeling his lips on her cheek. Surely he couldn't have thought of it any more than a goodbye. They have seemed almost disturbingly domestic though, with Scotty coming out in the middle of the night, Ellie settling in his arms, her making him a coffee in the morning, hell, even the goodbye kiss on the cheek. They're starting to look worryingly like a family.

**The norm - thank you for all your lovely reviews, you're a brilliant bunch!**


	7. Chapter 7

**_Seven_**

When Scotty comes through the front door, laden with Chinese takeout after work, he knows something's wrong straight away. Lilly's sat at her breakfast bar, the directory discarded on the floor next to her, her head in her hands. Ellie's nowhere to be seen, so he can only assume she's having a few minutes of precious sleep.

"What's wrong, Lil?" he asks, setting the takeout down on her kitchen top, taking the seat opposite her.

"I've been looking practically all day… whenever Ellie's not been screaming… looking for a sitter, and I- I can't do it, Scotty. I can't leave her with someone I don't know…" she sighs, "I guess I'll have to take indefinite leave from work until Christina's back on track…"

Without thinking, he puts a hand over hers, not allowing himself to consider the move before it's in place. He understands this, understands how painful this is, understands Lilly better than maybe she thinks. He takes his phone out of his pocket.

"I'm gonna go make a call… I might just be able to fix this…" he smiles at her, bright and sunshiny, and is out in the back garden on the phone before she even has anything else to say. She stares down at her hands for a moment, picks the directory off the floor, stares for a second at the silent baby-monitor, completely prepared for screaming to come out of it any second.

She's never before been able to mindlessly waste time, but in what seems to her like seconds, Scotty comes back through the back door, grinning all over his face.

"What would you think about my Mom watching Ellie whilst we're at work?"

"That would great. If only I had-"

"I've sorted it." He deadpans, his grin getting wider, and that makes her smile, because she hadn't even thought that was possible. "She'd love to do it. You can go back to work, and you know Boss better than I do, he'll let you have whatever time off you need…"

Without allowing herself to think, either, she flings her arms almost dramatically around him and hugs him. "Thank you… you're sure that'll be ok with her? I wouldn't want to-"

"Lil, she'll love it. She's always loved lookin' after children. I don't wanna hear any more complaints about it…"

She smiles at him. "Takeout now? I'm starving…"

He laughs. "Takeout."

That's when both of them realise, simultaneously; they're still in each other's arms.

* * *

After Lilly's had a few mouthfuls of Chinese she's recovered enough from her starvation to talk again, and she shocks herself, almost, by how direct she is, how honest.

"It's been a few days, Scotty, and I'm already… I'm already dreading not having her here…" she sighs, "I didn't think I was the sort of person who could get attached to a baby so quickly… I guess… I guess I was thinking I didn't understand how you could get so close to 'just a baby' – but Ellie's not 'just a baby' is she?"

"She sure as hell isn't just a baby… I'm not sure what she is… a screamer, but…"

Lilly laughs, glancing absent-mindedly over at the baby monitor, it already having become a habit she didn't even realise she was doing until she was doing it.

"I'm gonna find it harder than I thought I was going to when Christina's out of rehab, and I've gotta give her back, Scotty… I've gotten so used to having her around already…"

He shakes his head slightly, and it's not clear whether it's at her, or himself. "So have I." he says quietly, as if offering his agreement at the same time, "So have I."

They talk about other things then, as they finish the takeout, the case Scotty's on at work at the moment, how the team hate the new temp they've got working in Lilly's position, and are making life as difficult for him as possible. Ellie starts crying just as Lilly finishes, and she has to go up and feed her, but other than hungry and with a dirty diaper, her niece really doesn't have a problem at the moment. She comes down the stairs, swinging Ellie, who's suddenly full of energy and wanting to play, in her arms, to find Scotty's cleared everything up, and is standing drying up the two remaining plates at the sink.

"Scotty, you didn't have to-"

"Oh, Lil, it's the washing up, it's not exactly hard work." He laughs at the wide smile on Ellie's face, and without even asking, sweeps down and takes her in his arms, lifting her in the air and spinning round on the spot, making her start laughing and giggling. Lilly has a moment to think, just for a second, how domestic they've gotten, with Ellie, simply in days. How he doesn't even need to ask before taking her niece from her arms, that's the habit they've gotten into. And she says it to herself, because she's not able to say it in their conversation, part of the reason she's dreading losing Ellie when her sister's out of hospital is how close her niece has made her to her partner, and how she doesn't want that to end, she's getting comfortable with it, she'd like to keep it.

Scotty hands her Ellie, and lifts his coat up, and she wasn't expecting him to leave, somehow she's gotten used to having him here, she bites the bullet then.

"You wouldn't stay, would you, Scotty?" she says, and she can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, she can feel her own blush, "Just… if there's anything like last night… you could sleep on my couch or something…" she trails off, and all of a sudden her feet are suddenly the most fascinating thing, she won't stop staring at them. Her partner smiles at her slightly, that smile he gives sometimes that she can't read anything from. That one he has occasionally, and she knows he's thinking something about her, but she sure as hell can't work out what on earth it is.

"Sure." He laughs slightly, pulling Ellie straight back into his arms, kissing her on the forehead. "I had a long day at work, though, Lil, could I get my bed sorted now?"

This time, before they go to bed, simply as a goodnight, it's Lilly who stands on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

* * *

_She can hear a baby crying, and in reality she knows she's dreaming, but she needs to get to the baby and stop it crying… it can't be real, it can't be in her house, she doesn't have a baby…_

She slowly wakes, then, and when she does, the fear courses through her shockingly quickly, as she realises she does have a baby in her house, and she can no longer hear the crying. She jolts upright, and starts walking in her still half-asleep state to Ellie's nursery, when she hears a voice from in there, soft and soothing, and she remembers she's got Scotty in her house. She doesn't know what stops her, but she just pauses for a moment, as she sees him there, in the rocking chair with Ellie in his arms, feeding her a bottle of milk, to listen to what he's saying.

"And you… baby girl, you're more special than you know… and you needn't worry, not anymore, because your auntie Lil an' I, we're gon' take care of you… and we love you very much… and we're not always gon' do the right thing, because we… we don' really know what we're doin'… but I'm gon' take care of you, an' I'm gon' take care of your auntie Lil, too, because I care about you both more than either of you know…"

Lilly flattens herself against the wall outside, so he can't see her for a few seconds, her heart thumping so much in her chest she worries for a second that maybe it's audible… maybe he can hear what he's doing to her. She shakes her head at herself slightly, and then walks into the room, after Scotty's been silent for a few moments.

When Scotty looks up and sees her, he can't help the little smile that comes to his face at how adorable she looks in those pyjamas, and he's never been completely oblivious how pretty his partner is, but there are so many things he hasn't noticed… so many things he hasn't had the chance to notice, not until Ellie got here. He bends his head and gives her another little kiss, a silent thank you to the baby for the relationship she was forcing, almost, between him and Lilly.

"Thank you." She breathes, "I was slow at waking up… I'll take her now, go get some sleep."

He goes to hand her an almost asleep Ellie, but the moment she feels his hands leaving her body, the little girl starts to scream.

Lilly, as if she's too used to this now to take any offence, tilts her head to one side and smiles.

"Looks like she wants her Uncle Scotty tonight…"

He laughs, and thinks for moments that there's so much thanks he wants to give her for referring to him as Ellie's Uncle Scotty, but in the end, he just meets her eyes with his, holding them for a moment too long.

Lilly doesn't say a word, but sits on the floor beside Scotty and Ellie, and rests her head lightly on his knee. Scotty draws in a breath, waiting for her to realise her mistake, but she looks up at him and smiles.

"I couldn't do this without you, you know that?"

And he smiles.

**Thanks for all your feedback, keep it coming...**


	8. Chapter 8

**The only thing I've got to say before this one is I hope I've got Scotty's mother all right, I'm not 100% comfortable with making sure she's not OOC...**

**_Eight_**

They get to his mother's the next morning, Lilly laden with Ellie, and what seems like a thousand things that belong to the little girl, a crib, her car seat, endless formula milk, a few of her toys, a teething ring, diapers… His Mom smiles when she meets the little girl instantly, and straight away pulls her into her arms, swinging the little girl through the air, whispering something to her, making her laughing, showing her natural talent instantly. It's almost as if – Scotty doesn't even want to allow himself to think it, but he can't help it – it's almost as if his mother's treating her like a grandchild. He smiles slightly to himself, it's only taken him a few days to get that attached to the little girl. He'll think of her as his, if for only a short length of time. They're about to leave, when she smiles at him slightly enigmatically.

"Can I have a word, Scotty?" she asks, and slightly bewildered, he nods, stepping out into the hallway with his mother, frowning at her slightly, looking a little worried.

"Are you struggling again, Mom? Is something-"

His mother puts her hands on her hips and looks at him, a smile on her face that seems to be nearing a laugh.

"Is there something going on with you and Lilly, Scotty?"

It shocks him that it takes him a moment to come up with the denial – maybe that's telling him something about the feelings he's having for his partner these days – but he shakes his head slowly, giving her a little bit of a grimace.

"No." he laughs a little, and he can even hear the bitterness in his tone. "There's nothing between us."

His mother doesn't say anything, she knows her son too well; she knows that when he's in denial about something there's nothing that will persuade him; she smiles a little to herself, however. She can tell from a thousand signs – his face, his slight frown, the tone of his voice – that he wishes there was something between them. She's always been able to read him like a book; she can read that straight away on his face. It seems like madness to her that everyone can't see it, but she supposes that's the case with most people, really. No one ever knows them as well as their mother does. She does nothing more than give him a little smile and walk back through into the apartment, taking Ellie from Lilly, smiling slightly to herself as both of them give the sleeping little girl more than one goodbye kiss. If she didn't know better, if she didn't trust what her son told her, she'd think there was something between them, there was something between all three of them. They were some sort of family.

* * *

"Jeez, Scotty, I miss her already…" Lilly laughs a little at herself as Scotty pulls out of his mother's apartment block parking lot, and has a little chuckle.

"Me too." He smiles slightly, and considers it a point scored for himself when she doesn't have any form of reaction to that statement, like it's in anyway abnormal. He wishes he hadn't just had that conversation with his mother, he doesn't want to be even letting the idea of having some sort of relationship with Lilly into his head. It's dangerous, he knows himself too well, he knows every relationship he's ever in goes horribly, messily wrong, and he has too much on this friendship for anything to get ruined. She means too much to him to allow him to start ruining things.

"I'm gonna take her to see Christina tonight – she's in the rehab ward now, and I think she could do with seeing Ellie, might help…" She'd never be the person to ask a favour, to ask him to come with her, but everything's somehow going right for her today when he says:

"You want me to come with you?"

They're stopped at the traffic lights, and gives him a look then, just for a second, trying to convey her gratefulness.

"That'd be great, Scotty, if you didn't mind."

He flashes her an almost spectacular smile. "Of course I don't mind." He smiles, "Wanna pick her up after work and go straight there?"

"That sounds great." She smiles, feeling almost the need to pinch herself, that maybe she's in a dream, considering how well everything's going today.

Vera and Miller are both by the window as the car pulls into the parking lot, and they see the two of them get out, and both of them laugh slightly as they see Scotty nudge Lilly with something he's saying, and Lilly laughs. Vera whistles slightly and mutters something under his breath that makes Miller laugh, and they both stare slightly stunned at their colleagues for a moment. They look completely like a family now, more comfortable around each other than with anyone else, like suddenly everyone else in the department segregated a little bit from them, and they're not even trying.

* * *

Lilly's day of everything going just the way she wants it to ends the moment they get to the rehab clinic. All three of them are allowed to go through to see Christina, and Lilly holds Ellie, tightly between her arms, and she doesn't want to admit it to herself, even, but she's suddenly feeling slightly protective of the little girl, like she's not sure how her mother's going to treat her, and she's worried about her niece. She knows then she's not going to give Ellie up to Christina until she's 100% better, she's going to be very particular about what environment she's going to release the little girl into.

As it is, her worrying's not unfounded. Christina's looking exhausted, and a little painfully pale, and she merely gives her daughter a slightly bored glance, looking more surprised when she sees Scotty there.

Lilly grits her teeth and tells herself she's inventing things in her head. She plasters a sunshiny smile all over her face. "Do you want to hold Ellie, Chris?"

Her younger sister doesn't even look at her daughter, merely shakes her head.

"Not right now, I'm tired."

Lilly has to swallow everything she has to say in return, and she's about to lose something when Scotty's hand grips her shoulder, giving her that little reassurance, reminding her that whenever he's around, everything will turn out fine.

They don't stay long in the end, Christina lethargic and grumpy and completely disinterested in Ellie. Lilly feels her heart fall a little bit lower every time her sister speaks, and when she turns, about fifteen minutes into their visit, and says, "Can you go, Lil? I just wanna sleep…", she has to really clench and unclench her fists for a moment to handle what she's feeling, but she gives her sister's forehead a light kiss and the three of them walk out.

As they're about to leave, the nurse that had been sat talking to a patient beside them calls after them.

"Ms Rush?"

Lilly turns, "Yes?"

"Don't worry too much. It's the first stage of being weaned off the drugs… they're always grumpy, they're always tired. Come and see her next week, she'll be a lot better."

Lilly doesn't have any words, but Scotty smiles and thanks the nurse, and heads out to the car, his arm around Lilly's shoulders, guiding her slightly.

They drive home in silence, some kind of mixture of being immersed in their own thoughts, and utter exhaustion. Being with such an unresponsive Christina has taken all the energy out of Lilly, it all seeming like more of an impossible battle for her now, and it's somehow harder than it was that day they took a battered Christina to the hospital, because she's so attached to the little one this is affecting now. She feels so protective of her niece. Everything right now seems somehow so much harder than it did hours ago.

* * *

They put Ellie to bed together, and Lilly pours them both a glass of wine, somehow ending up on the sofa next to Scotty, a large Rioja in her hand. Then she starts talking, as if she just needs to say it out loud, whether he's listening or not is really an irrelevant point.

"I hate seeing her like that… she just… she just didn't care about Ellie at all… I thought, I thought she looked old…" she drains her wine glass and sets in down on the coffee table. "She reminds me of my mother…"

Scotty doesn't have an answer to that, and thinks he never will, and can't think of anything to say in that moment, so he does the only thing he can think of, and slings his arm around her shoulders on the sofa.

Slowly, wordlessly, she leans her head into him, closing her eyes.

In the end, it's only minutes before she's drifted off to sleep. Scotty waits until he hears her breathing slow, and takes the liberty of pressing a light kiss to her forehead and resting his head against hers.

He falls asleep smiling.

**And as always, I'm gonna thank you for that review before you give it, and thanks again for all the anonymous reviews I can't reply to!**


	9. Chapter 9

**_Nine_**

It's a baby screaming that wakes them, halfway through the night. As Lilly wakes up, for a moment she's simply terrified, Scotty's arms firmly around her, her head resting in the crook of his neck… but Ellie doesn't give her time to think about it. They both rub sleep from their eyes for moments, becoming accustomed to the idea of being awake and answerable again, and then Lilly nudges Scotty grouchily.

"Your turn…"

He chuckles slightly as he heads up to take care of Ellie, suspecting a diaper change and a bottle of milk will be what's needed. It's relatively quick and easy, and Ellie's clearly tired too, she's all too ready to go back to sleep when she's clean and full again. He smiles at her a little as he leaves the room, again thinking as he is finding himself so often doing these days how precious she is to him.

When he walks back into Lilly's sitting room, she's looking awkward, sprawled across the couch, though she obviously doesn't have any trouble getting back to sleep, she's already dead to the world.

He doesn't think then, he can't allow himself to. He simply picks her up in his arms and carries her upstairs to her bedroom. It strikes him then, as he carries her up the stairs, how tiny she is, how effortless this is, how it's hardly any more difficult than carrying Ellie. He gets to her room, and sets her in her bed, when she wriggles slightly and clutches his hand.

"Stay here." She mumbles, not opening her eyes even, and for a moment he's not even sure she really said anything. He's not positive it wasn't in his mind. But then she repeats herself, and there's nothing he can do but lie down beside her, leaving a tiny gap between them. He's not sure, and neither of them will ever be sure whether she's intending to do it or it's in her sleep, but she tugs both his hands around her waist, and snuggles into his arms, almost instantly falling back into a deep sleep.

Scotty falls asleep thinking there's nothing about the way he's holding her that says partners, just friends.

* * *

The first thing Lilly does when she wakes up is panic. Her face is inches away from a sleeping Scotty's, on the pillow, and for moments her heart is racing, thinking that if they do too much of this, too often, she's going to stop being able to pretend she sees him as just her partner. She sighs slightly then, slipping for one moment and allowing herself to think about how he must see her, as his partner, how differently they must see each other. Before she's had long to think about it, however, the phone's ringing, and she bends over the edge of the bed and picks up the cell from the floor without even thinking.

"Detective Rush."

For a moment there's silence, and then someone snorting with laughter. She tilts the phone a little away from her ear – it's Vera. And… oh hell, it's not her phone, no wonder he's laughing.

"It's not what you think it is, Nick…" she says, sounding slightly tired, but his laughing continues for a few moments more, making clear he doesn't believe a word of what she's saying.

"Let Scotty know…" she's treated to another snigger then, "Let Scotty know that we've got the evidence, it was the sister… I'll let you get back to whatever it is you're doing…"

"Nick, I-"

"Don't worry, Lil, you and Valens can do whatever the hell you want… I don't wanna know… I really don't wanna know…"

"But it's not-"

"I've gotta go. See you."

"Bye."

She shakes her head absent-mindedly then, both at herself, for being stupid and naïve enough to just blindly go for a phone with a man in her bed, and at Nick for suspecting there was more to it that they were letting on. Because there's not more too it, and she finds herself feeling a little sad then, thinking there never will be. She shakes her whole self slightly, having never quite thought about _that _before, having never allowed herself to realise that she likes the idea.

She looks at Scotty, wondering what's come over her, in the past few days, maybe she can make some sort of excuse for her behaviour in all the stress the situation with Christina and Ellie has caused, when his eyelids flutter open.

"Vera called… I answered your cell, Scotty, it was stupid, I didn't even think… he said to let you know they've got some evidence… it was the sister…"

He smiles slightly in his half-awake state. "I knew it…" he mumbles, and laughs a little, and something's not quite normal there, they're in the same bed, he's staring up at her, and there's something in his eyes she can't quite read. There's near deathly silence for moments as the two of them don't have any words to add, and then it's all broken by the sound of a baby screaming through the walls.

They both say, "I'll get Ellie…" at exactly the same time, and they find themselves both laughing. Lilly shakes her head slightly and gets up before a barely-awake Scotty even has the chance to really register, and walks off into the nursery, leaving him in her bed, smiling a little to himself, thinking about how domestic that moment just was, how maybe they should be starting to consider themselves a family when they do something like that.

* * *

Another week passes, and Scotty barely sets foot in his own home, except for to get some of his clothes to stash in one of Lilly's drawers… he spends every night sleeping either on her couch or on the other side of bed, usually depending on how Ellie's decided to treat them as they go to sleep, how kind she's been. They're both utterly exhausted – to all new levels they hadn't even known existed – but beautifully happy at the same time. There's something about infants that does that to you.

They grow closer, as well, as practically living together should make them. Each night over dinner Lilly tells him slightly more about her childhood, the horrors that she faced, the mothering that she had to do to her sister, and he tells her more about Elissa than he's ever told anyone, and even, one night, over a couple of glasses of wine and to make her feel a little better when she brings up her mugging, he bites the bullet and tells her the horrid truth about everything that's happened to his mother. She takes his hand when he's talking about it, and both of them are too wrapped up in their own horrors to think anything of it for once, but there's something beautiful about it. Something that's both of them offering all their friendship and support and maybe a hint of something more to the other one.

Lilly finds herself getting used to the feeling of her lips on her cheek, polite, chaste, he's taken to always kissing her goodnight and goodbye, and she's not sure she wants to admit to herself that she's thinking it, but she can't help a little person somewhere in the back of her mind wishing it was something more. Scotty's taken to calling Ellie Peanut, and he doesn't think too hard about this, because they both already know under the surface that they're too attached to the little girl. He knows, in reality, that this is too domestic. They both begin to dread slightly more each day how much they're going to miss her when Christina takes her back.

And then they go to visit Christina in the hospital again, at the weekend, and she isn't there. She's checked herself out, three days ago.

**As always, your feedback's been brilliant, keep it coming!**


	10. Chapter 10

**__Thanks for all the feedback so far, and thanks to those anonymous reviews I can't reply to...**

**_Ten_**

Because babies are blessed with some sort of indescribable timing, after the nurse has just said to them that Christina Rush checked herself out, Ellie starts screaming, in the middle of the clinic, and for a moment Lilly's frozen, not knowing what to do, think or say, holding the screaming child that isn't hers but he mother's MIA in her arms, feeling slightly and ashamedly sick.

Scotty's stunned as well, they'd both been thinking Christina had had the reality check she'd needed, she was going to change now, but she'd… she'd gone. Something about that was too familiar to Lilly, and maybe it was something to do with the way she was dealing with the situation, maybe she wasn't allowing herself to think about it, so she wasn't allowing herself to think _anything _right in this second.

The nurse starts frowning at them, hands on her hips.

"Could you get the screaming baby out of here, please? This is supposed to be a place of peace…"

Lilly doesn't respond, but Scotty's back with it now. He looks at his partner for a moment, waiting for her to regain herself, but when there's no sign of it, and Ellie's screaming's only increasing, he curves an arm around his partner's shoulders and guides the two of them both out into the parking lot. It's almost like guiding a patient, Lilly seems so reluctant to move. He takes Ellie from his partner's arms by the car – she seems to have decided screaming isn't necessary anymore – and sets her in her car seat, before getting into the driver's seat, Lilly climbing with almost the gait of a zombie into the passenger seat. When the doors of the car close, she finally bursts into tears… and though he's not a fan of her despair, it's slightly more human than anything else she's done in the last few minutes. Scotty puts his arm straight around her shoulders and tucks her into his side, letting her lean against him and sob against his skin for minutes, until she can form a coherent sentence.

"I really thought she was gonna change, Scotty…" she sniffs, remembering years of mothering the little girl, her sister, and she can't help it, she feels a little guilt about it all, should she have done something more when the girl was little? "I thought Ellie was going to change her…"

He sighs slightly, wishing he could comfort his partner, but knowing there's not really anything he can say that'll help.

"Come on, let's get our little girl home…" he says, shaking his head slightly at his inability to have anything comforting, but what he's said resonates through the car for seconds, and Lilly's eyes fill with completely different tears.

_Our little girl. _

And she supposes, despite everything that's happening, despite everything that's already happened, that Ellie is theirs, really.

* * *

They put Ellie to bed together, slowly, and mostly in silence, as if they are both having another realisation of how precious they find the little girl. And it's different now, now neither of them know if Christina's ever going to turn up again… especially for Lilly, Ellie is suddenly beginning to look more permanent. She can't understand, taking how much she already loves the little girl into account, how anyone could disappear from her life, but she knows Christina, she's done this before, but there's nothing fair about it. Nothing _right._

They hardly talk to each other all evening, as if they know there are things to say that they can't bring themselves to bring up yet, they spend most of their time talking and laughing to Ellie – together, but not addressing any of the problems that are stacking up. They set her to bed eventually, both of them kissing her on the forehead, and walk down to the kitchen in silence.

When they get there, everything changes.

Scotty puts his arms around Lilly, holding her tightly to him, knowing moment before it comes that a sob's coming out.

"Shhh… don't cry, Lil… it's gonna be ok… we'll figure something out…"

Her shoulders shake for a moment in his arms, and then she pulls away, and sits down on one of the breakfast bar stools, shrugging her shoulders as if she doesn't even begin to have an answer. She can't stop thinking about the trouble Christina could be in right now, she probably hasn't conquered the drugs yet, and she can't stop thinking about Ellie, and how someone so small simply doesn't deserve to be abandoned… she thinks about the little girl, and the tears keep falling. It's so unfair.

"It's… it's not fair on her… she's drawn the short straw… and she can't even talk yet… she doesn't deserve any of this…" she whimpers, wiping her eyes fiercely. She's always thought everything she suffered in her childhood, at the hands of her mother, wasn't fair to her, but that doesn't even compare to how outraged she is about the bad hand Ellie's drawn.

There are tears in Scotty's eyes, too, when he steps towards her, wrapping his arms around her, his face worryingly close to hers, so much in his eyes she can't decipher.

Something in him changes, then. He has to swallow the pill right now, he has to stop really thinking before he speaks. He cups her face in his hands, tilting it up to his slightly so their eyes are locked.

"Listen to me, Lil. She'll never have drawn the short straw while she has you, d'you understand?" he says softly, his voice thick with emotion, and nerves, and something she can't even begin to translate.

For years of her life, she'll blame a thousand things, the stressful situation she's in, how tired she is, how much fear for the future she's got. But she acts completely out-of-character then, she acts completely on impulse, something she never does.

She leans forward, and she hardly has to go very far, he's already so close, and she touches her lips to his.

**I think I'm going to get a bit of a reaction at that chapter ending, I promise the next update will be up really really soon! You won't have to wait long!**


	11. Chapter 11

**_Eleven_**

For a moment they're still, both in slight shock, neither knowing what they're doing or what to do next, for a second. Then something changes somewhere, and they're both moving, their lips gently caressing one another, their arms coming around each other, their bodies pressing closer together. Scotty thinks if you could feel your brain exploding in your head, that's what this would feel like – because this is what he's been dreaming for years now, and she tastes _so good _he can hardly breathe. Lilly can't even begin to let herself think anything – she doesn't want her mind to go anywhere other than what's happening right now, for fear it will disappear. It's maybe longer than you'd think a first kiss would be, because they're both scared of the other's reaction, both of them are fearful of seeing their partner's face when they pull back… because both of them are loving it, and both their pessimism's are fearing seeing the opposite on their friend's face.

But, to Scotty's surprise, when he pulls back, there's a grin on Lilly's face, she's smiling like the cat that got the cream. Slowly, slightly unsure, that brings a smile to his face as well.

"Is this ok?" she asks, and he smiles a little wider at the tiny, shy voice that's coming out of her mouth. For someone who's always so confident, never taking any prisoners, so sure of herself, she suddenly sounds afraid. He doesn't want to read too much into it, but it almost gives him the idea that she wants a positive answer. He hasn't got the words, not for a second, so he catches her lips with his quickly, bringing a wider grin to her face.

"It's more than ok, Lil. Try six years in the makin'."

She laughs a little then, nodding her head slightly in agreement, and he pulls her up, off the stool, flattening her body against, leaning in to kiss her once more, and it's deeper this time, more heated, there are tongues tangling with each other, hands from both sides travelling everywhere, he presses her against her fridge door, and all of a sudden she's got a sudden urge to start undoing buttons. He pulls back then, smiling, kissing her on the forehead.

"We'll figure it out, Lil… we can take care of Ellie…" he kisses her softly, gently. "We need to keep this slow, for it to work, Lil…"

And she smiles, because she agrees, but despite that she's still kissing him again with some sort of fiery passion, and Scotty thinks for a second that maybe it's easier to survive some kinds of torture than Lilly Rush literally starting to undress him, and then Ellie starts screaming, and they both pull away, flushed in the cheeks and aroused beyond belief, but they're both laughing.

"This is how it's going to be, isn't it?" Lilly smiles, and he tucks a blonde curl behind her ear.

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Scotty says. "You go to bed, you're tired. I'll fix Peanut, you get some sleep."

"But-"

He frowns at her slightly as he starts to leave the room. "Slowly, remember?"

She gives him a little smile as he walks through the door, and somehow there's more in that smile than there's ever been before, somehow there's something entirely new, now, and it's something beautiful.

* * *

After he's changed her diaper, he takes Ellie back down into the kitchen, heats the formula milk and rocks her in his arms as he feeds it to her, marvelling again at how much like her aunt she looks, how much more she seems to look like Lilly every day, a sprinkling of blonde hair, something about those blue eyes…

"You'll never guess what's happened, Peanut…" he whispers, and her eyes open slightly and she amuses him, looking at him, mildly confused. "I've been thinkin' about what there would be between me and your auntie Lil for years… but I didn't think it would ever go anywhere… and you know what? I think it's partly you that's caused this…"

She pulls her mouth away from the bottle, smiling at him, satisfied for now. "You know, Peanut, sometimes I think that's part of the reason I love you so much, that you look like Lil…" he smiles a little to himself, discards the bottle in the sink and starts rocking Ellie, she's almost asleep already, he sings a lullaby he remembers his mother singing in his childhood, in a whisper, and then her eyes are closing and she's slipping back to sleep. He rocks her for minutes longer, in a way loathe to let go of the little girl, still ever-fearing the moment when she wouldn't be with them 24/7, despite Christina's MIA status. In all honesty, he thinks that there will be little they can do to keep the little girl is Christina was to turn up and take her back.

He puts Ellie to bed then, when she's sound asleep and he's had his moments with her. He's thinking he's gonna go set his bed up on the couch in Lilly's living room, when the moments between them in the kitchen are flashing through his mind, the way she felt in his arms, and he pokes his head around her door, telling himself he's just checking on her.

He doesn't even believe himself.

She's sound asleep, curled in the foetal position on the edge of the bed, and he never thought they'd get here, but he shrugs his pants and shirt off, down to his boxers and a tank top, and climbs in the bed next to her, still slightly apprehensive, but quite decidedly wrapping his arms around her.

She stirs slightly in her sleep, turns her head to face his, lightly kisses his jaw.

"Night, Scotty." She whispers, lacing her fingers with his, a little smile appearing on her face.

He almost has to pinch himself then, give himself some sort of reassurance this is still real.


	12. Chapter 12

**_Twelve_**

The next day, after dropping Ellie off at Scotty's mothers in the morning, they spend in the Precinct, and there are no cases on top of them at the moment, so Stillman's taken a step back and he's letting them look for Christina. Lilly's tried phoning her cell number, but the phone seems to have gone completely dead, they've tried the CCTV footage from outside the hospital the night she signed herself out… but she doesn't come out the front door, she must have got a cab from one of the side entrances. Lilly's never been the kind to give up easily, but after a few hours, and they're getting literally no results, she finds she's getting to the point where she has to accept that there's literally no answers. There's absolutely nothing; Christina's disappeared.

And that's when she starts thinking about it, and suddenly the answer comes to her effortlessly, as if she always knew, she was just afraid to admit it. Christina's had enough experience in the past to know about running from the law… she guesses her sister just doesn't want to be found. She knows how to do that too well, and for the first time, Lilly is angry. She's been trying to blame the drug addiction and the abusive partner for weeks now, making excuses for Christina, but all of a sudden she doesn't have one anymore. And now she's angry, she's really angry. She walks into the break room, and there's Scotty, running his hands absent-mindedly through his hair, as if he doesn't have an answer anymore and he's trying to think of another idea on what to do to find Christina – who doesn't want to be found.

"How could she do this?" she hisses, and there's rage in her voice like he hasn't heard about her sister this time round yet, "How could she do this to Ellie? What's our little girl ever done to deserve this?"

He doesn't think anyone is watching, he can see the door behind her, and he can't see anyone looking in, so he does the only thing he knows how to do to help her in this situation, and he leans in and kisses her. They don't know they're found out, and they won't know for weeks, but Jeffries sees them as he's about to enter the break room – and he pays Vera later – they got together quicker that he'd placed his bet in their poll.

* * *

Call it mother's intuition or something like that, but Scotty's Mom knows something's changed when they go to pick Ellie up that night. She doesn't ask them anything, she just keeps the sleeping little girl in her arms and smiles at both of them.

"Querido, I'll take Ellie for the night if you two want to go out…"

Scotty blushes, quite violently, but when he looks at Lilly she's smiling and nodding, and he'll never understand how his Mom can be quite so _psychic _really to know this, but Lilly's agreeing, Lilly's not judging, so it's going to be ok. He gives his Mom a very overenthusiastic hug as they leave and she chuckles a little as he steps away, sliding his arm lightly around Lilly's waist now… because she knows, and it's ok to show it for moments, then. Lilly leans into him and he considers for a second that maybe he doesn't know his partner at all, these last 24 hours she's done numerous things that he never would have expected.

"Let's go home, get changed, shall we?" she says, and if he didn't know better, he'd be sure there was a hint of excitement in her voice.

"Sure." He smiles, and she puts a tiny kiss on his lips before he pulls away, and it strikes him that they're already worryingly domestic, they've got a slightly concerning routing already. But he can't stop smiling, so they drive home mostly in silence, smiling at each other.

* * *

Lilly's getting ready in the bathroom, and he's halfway through, trying to find a shirt of his in Lilly's cupboard, and there's not much going-out stuff in there yet, it's still all looking after the baby at hideous hours of the morning stuff, and he's about to give up completely when the door to the bathroom opens and she steps out, and she's wearing a little black dress, and her hair curling around her face, and he's rendered completely speechless.

"You look… wow…" he manages after a few moments, and that seems to be the turning point. Something flashes in her eyes he hasn't got used to yet, he doesn't recognise yet, and then she's closing the gap between them and her mouth's on his.

It's all becoming far too obvious that's he's only in his jeans then, and her mouth's never felt quite like this yet, as if she's almost _hungrier _for him, and she tastes better than he remembers…

Things get hot and heavy very quickly, both their hands are everywhere, she's so tiny and perfect in that dress, but suddenly all he wants to do is get that dress off her, and she seems to be pretty keen for her hands to find their way to the zipper on his pants, and suddenly everything's exploding, every thought he's ever had about this in all the years they've known each other, every dream he's ever had he thought he'd never get a chance to experience.

She pulls back then, as her hands tear his zipper down, and smiles at him, her eyes unbelievable dark and her face red. "We don't have to go out tonight, Scotty…" she half-whispers, in that dark, breathy voice that practically undoes him, and he claims her lips with his own, and then he's rid her of the dress, and he has moments of coherent thought before he loses it all, and in that second he thinks that he has never dreamed that he would have Lilly Rush in his arms, in her underwear, in his bed.

And then he forgets everything.

* * *

Afterwards, in the end, they order takeout and sit together on her couch in front of a movie, Lilly still in his arms, unsure they're still in reality, Scotty slightly intoxicated by the woman he'd always dreamed about, but never thought she'd actually give him her body.

They fall asleep entwined in one another.


	13. Chapter 13

**__Right, here's the last chapter, guys. Hope you enjoy. There will be an epilogue in a couple of days. Thank you so much for all your feedback, throughout Breathe Me, especially the anonymous reviews I haven't been able to reply to.  
**

**_Thirteen_**

Weeks go by, and Scotty's as good as living in Lilly's house now, with her and Ellie, and they're not quite playing at being a family anymore, they almost are one.

She opens the door that morning, and for a moment she can't breathe. There's a woman standing on her doorstep, blonde curls and sunken eyes, a pale face that's for a second both terrifying and impossible. That's the story of a ruined childhood, right there, all those memories she's pushed away, dealt with a long time ago, resurfacing. She has to bite her tongue for a moment and reassure herself it's Christina, not her mother, standing there. She thinks that should be altogether less terrifying, her childhood isn't back to haunt her, but then she thinks of Ellie and she realises history's about to repeat itself, the face in front of her looks scarily familiar. She loves the little girl too much to throw her blindly into the same childhood she had. She's going to have to do anything to keep her from it. She grits her teeth then, preparing for a battle, at the same time wishing Scotty wasn't at the garage; she could really use him right now. She swallows. She's going to be brave. She needs to be.

Then her sister does the thing she least expects. Holds out some papers, thrusts them into her sister's grasp, forcing a grimace.

"You should adopt her… you should be her mother, not me… you should…" she hisses at Lilly, and she can hear from her tone that she's high on something, but right now she's got someone else to take care of, she's given Christina too many chances, and the papers she's holding in her hands are proper adoption papers, and Christina's signed them, they're all ready to go. All it will take for her to be Ellie's mother is a flick, a twirl of her pen.

"Come in, Chris, we'll sort something out…"

Her sister merely shakes her head. "It's not a job I'll be able to do, Lil… I'll be Mom, and I'll always hate myself for that… hell, you're already better at being Ellie's Mom than I'll ever be…"

"We can talk about this, you need some help…"

Christina laughs then, and Lilly finds it ever so strange… this isn't really a situation that has anything funny about it.

"I don't want help, Lil, I'm beyond that… you've gotta stop trying to help me, it's always gonna be a losing battle… you've got someone to help for the rest of your life now…"

And she's walking away, and Lilly's calling after her, but she can't chase, Ellie's asleep in the kitchen, and her sister hails a cab and is disappearing, as if she'd see her tomorrow, as if she hadn't just handed all the responsibilities for something as important as a daughter.

Lilly stands there for moments, staring aimlessly after her sister, the cab, into thin air, wondering what the hell just happened.

And then Ellie starts crying.

* * *

When Scotty gets back, car fixed, he walks into the kitchen and almost immediately stops short, shocked by the sight. Ellie is sleeping in her Moses basket in the corner, Lilly is sat at the breakfast bar, official looking papers on the table in front of her, her head in her hands.

"Lil?"

She looks up at him, looking slightly surprised, as if she hadn't expected him to turn up, and she shrugs, as if she thinks she doesn't know anything anymore.

"They're adoption papers… Christina… Christina turned up and gave them to me… she was high as a kite, Scotty…I can't help her anymore, I just don't have it in me…"

For a moment he stares blankly at the adoption papers, Christina's signature already all over them, all ready for everything to change. Lilly looks up at him, and for the first time, meets his eyes.

"What do I do?" her eyes are full of tears. A thousand completely useless things to say rushing through his head, Scotty swallows all of them, sits down next to her and takes her hand.

"I love her, I love her so much, Scotty, but I'm… I'm not her mother, I…" she's looking at Ellie, as if the whole thing's hopeless, but strangely, it doesn't seem that way to him. Crazy, sure, the wrong order of things, but something about Lilly adopting this little girl seems perfect.

He kisses her. "You're more than she could have ever hoped for in a mother, Lil. You're wonderful for her, she's lucky to have you…"

She shakes her head, "I… this is our whole lives though, mine and hers, together… what if I'm not any good when she's not a baby anymore, what if I can't do it… I can't do this on my own…"

"You won't be on your own, you know that…"

She looks at him with wide blue eyes. Something comes to her then she'd honestly never thought about before, but when it appears in her head she's incredulous it hadn't occurred to her, it seems like the perfect solution, the perfect future.

"This might seem… I think I…" she sighs, "Forget it."

"No… What?" he suddenly needs to know what she was going to say. There's something in her eyes, he supposes, that tells him it's something big, and right now, with the baby in front of her, the tears running down her cheeks, she looks so vulnerable, her wants to do something about that.

"I could… we could see if… If you could be joint guardian with me…"

He turns his head away from her then, for a moment unable to let her see how much that means to him, and she stiffens. "I'm sorry, Scotty, it was a stupid suggestion, forget I mentioned it… we've only been together a few weeks… hell, I don't even know what _this_ is…"

He turns back, and there are tears in his eyes. "You would really be ok with that?"

"I…"

"You would really let me share that with you?"

Lilly smiles, "Sometimes I think she prefers you, anyway…"

He laughs, blinking away the tears. "You will never have any idea how much I love you, Lilly Rush… how much I love both of you..."

She laughs, tears spilling down her face, and pulls him close to kiss. "I love you too. I love you too."

**For the last time, I promise the epilogue will be up soon!**


	14. Epilogue

**__And this is the final piece of the puzzle, you lot... I'd like to thank you all so much for all the feedback you've given me, it's been brilliant, and I got far more reviews that I expected! I guess it teaches me that though Cold Case is over, it's got such a lovely and still active fandom...**

**_Epilogue – Five Years Later_**

The little girl looks up from the tray of brownies as she hears the front door slam behind someone.

"It was the brother, Scotty! I told you it was the brother!" she hears, and her face lighting up, she slides down from the kitchen chair and sprints out of the kitchen, dropping brownie mix and icing across the floor.

Eleanor Lilly Rush, Ellie to her friends, Peanut to her father, barrels down the hallway and launches herself up into Lilly's arms, burying her face in her shoulder, tracking sugary handprints over her pant suit.

"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Daddy and I made brownies!" she yells, making her mother-for-all-intents-and-purposes stagger back slightly with the sound so close to her ear.

"That sounds wonderful, hon!" Lilly kisses Ellie on the nose, running her fingers lightly over the girl's unruly blonde curls, "I hope you saved some for me!"

"We might have a few left." Comes from the man leaning against the kitchen doorframe, a pink apron tied around his waist, a weary smile on his face. Ellie beams at her father, wriggling out of her mother's arms. Christina's never appeared again, Lilly doesn't like to think about where she might be, what state she might be in, and Ellie's their daughter now… as far as she knows, she always has been. She goes to kindergarten now, in the week, and other than that, on Saturdays they take it in turns to work, she gets a day with just Mommy one week, a day with just Daddy the next. Today was a day with Daddy, and she had had so much fun, they'd gone to the park, played ball out on the grass in the sunshine, then come home for a baking session, making brownies with fondant icing all over the tops of them, in various different colours. Nearly all her favourite things in one day, she'd gotten a treat again.

"Why don't you go and get Tripod's dinner, Peanut?" Scotty says, smiling down at the girl who he'd come to know as his daughter, although she wasn't truthfully, none of that really mattering. She smiles, one that jolts in his chest slightly because it's so similar to Lilly's, back at him, and she skips off back into the kitchen, humming something to herself. Scotty smiles after her and takes a step gently towards Lilly, placing his hands on either side of her waist.

"Good day, then?"

She takes a step even closer to him, reaching up to absent-mindedly wipe a smudge of flour off his cheek. "Not bad." She half-whispers, and he reaches up to gently tug her hair out of its usual ponytail, watching waves of blonde falling down lightly over her shoulder, watching the slight smile spread across her cheeks. She rests her forehead gently against his, giving a tiny satisfied sigh as she does, leaning slightly into him.

Unable to wait seconds longer, he leans his mouth into hers, both gently and forcefully, bringing them tight together. He catches the slight hitch of her breath as his mouth meets hers, and he can't help a slight smile on his lips as her arms curl around his neck. He thinks for seconds about how her niece brought the two of them together and then he loses himself in her, her eyes closing, his following almost instantly. He feels her mouth open opposite his and their tongues duel gently, the taste of her overwhelming him slightly, as it always does, the slight hint of blueberries.

"Gross." They hear a little voice say and they break apart immediately, turning to the doorway to see Ellie standing there with her hands on her hips, almost laughing at them. "Come on, Mommy, you need to taste one of our brownies!"

Scotty's hand trails almost unnoticed down from her waist and links with hers, fingers threading through each other lightly. He leans down and whispers something in her ear, and Ellie watches as it makes the smile on her Mommy's face widen a little, and her tilt her head up a little, quickly, and kiss her Daddy on the cheek.

She turns around and starts to walk back into the kitchen, and the two of them follow her, hands still joined, leaning close together.

The three of them disappear into the kitchen.

**And you know you want to leave one last review...**


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